Football for Fun

The top game of the week for 40,000 Atlanta fans and millions of televiewers matched the undefeated engineers of Georgia Tech, the nation's No. 2 team, and the Crimson Tide of Alabama, No. 12; for a while at the start, a 200-proof shocker of an upset seemed in the making. Aroused Alabama, threatening time & again, scored a first-period field goal and kept the vaunted Tech attack bottled up.

Not until the second period did the sputtering Georgia Tech offense, handicapped by the loss of injured Star Halfback Leon Hardeman, finally get untracked. With a pair of downfield blockers paving the way, Hardeman's substitute, Dick Pretz, ripped around right end for 11 yds. and a touchdown. That was all the scoring for the day, but Tech's fast, rangy (191 lbs. average) defensive platoon bent to its task with ferocious tackling and held Alabama at bay. Final score: 7-3.

Georgia Tech, a two-touchdown favorite, had played its most lackluster game of the season, but it is one of the marks of a champion to win even on the off-days. Instead of being displeased, Tech Coach Robert Lee Dodd, easy and relaxed, gave credit to the other team rather than blaming his own. Said Dodd: "We're not too disappointed. After seeing the way Alabama played, we were extremely happy to win it at all." The remark summed up Dodd's whole coaching thesis: "I coach just like I would want to be coached if I was back in college--and the way I'd like my son to be coached." At Georgia Tech, they come as close as any big-league squad can to playing football for plain fun.

Tech practice sessions are limited to an hour and a half, and the players seldom scrimmage after September. Says Dodd: "What can a good football player get out of knocking himself out blocking a freshman at practice when he played against an All-American last week?" Dodd's ten-man staff of assistants, one of the biggest coaching staffs in the country, give the players a maximum of attention and a minimum of tough talk.

The Dodd system contradicts many of the theories of the hell-for-leather big-time college coaches. And though Tech does its best to lure good players, Dodd must constantly cope with the hard fact that the tough engineering school has no snap courses like those found in some of the football foundries. How does Dodd consistently stay on top of the collegiate heap? The former All-American quarterback for Tennessee (1930) has a twinkle in his grey eyes when he answers that one: "Don't forget, we get the smarter boys--and that helps." It also helps that Dodd's Sugar Bowl-bound engineers seem to enjoy playing football for him.

Georgia Tech's Sugar Bowl opponent, Mississippi, pulled the upset of the week by downing unbeaten Maryland, No. 3 in the polls, 21-14. Michigan State, No. 1, held its rank by toppling Notre Dame, 21-3. And Michigan, upsetting Purdue 21-10, took over the lead (tied with Wisconsin) in the Big Ten Conference race.

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